19
Ways to Step Back 1.Acknowledge your impulse to make students' days go
smoothly. There's a reason you chose the helping profession.
We should, of course, be available to our students
when they need us. To avoid teaching them to be overly
dependent, though, keep in mind:
19
Ways to Step Back
1.Acknowledge your impulse to make students' days go
smoothly. There's a reason you chose the helping profession.
2.Pause before answering or helping.
3.Sit on your hands for a whole task while you practice giving
verbal instead of touch cues.
4.The handicap associated with vision loss only stems from
lack of information. Pat yourself on the back every time you
help with seeing but resist helping with thinking.
5.Schedule in advance a brief task or time period when you
commit to no intervention . . . no matter what (unless safety is
compromised.) See what happens. Reintroduce assistance
only as needed.
6.Sit further away. If you have been within arm's reach, sit
just within earshot. If you have been sitting just within earshot,
sit across the room.
7.Take data instead. Keep a tally of the number of times in a
lesson students appropriately go to their Classroom Teachers
instead of other adults.
8.Call on students' learning partners or sighted guides.
9.Unless you are the Classroom Teacher, catch yourself
before you correct students' work. Remember, this is about
students' skills . . . not yours.
10.Teach students to decline assistance: "Thanks, but please
let me try it by myself."
11.Phase out cues.
12.Have students discreetly ask their classmates for
information (what page they are on, what is the school lunch,
who the teacher is talking to, etc.) Coach them to do this on
the telephone in the evening as well as during school hours.
13.Remind yourself that you're stepping back so that students
can become independent. It's harmful when you cover for
them. Don't be responsible for holding them back in this area.
14.Make sure that team members (especially the principal)
know your reasons for stepping back so it doesn't seem like
you are shirking your responsibilities.
15.Clock how long it takes for students to do things
independently. The extra time to start zippers, pick up
dropped papers, or find page numbers may seem eternal but
actually last only a few seconds.
16.Tell other adults in the classroom that you're going to step
back and ask them to remind you when you should do this.
17.Let Classroom Teachers serve as clearinghouse for all
questions or needs. Students ask their Classroom Teachers.
The Classroom Teachers then decide to (a) respond
themselves, (b) delegate other adults or students to help, or
(c) ask the students to try to work it out alone
18.Let your students make mistakes and get into trouble. It's
part of the human experience!
19.Post a sign, "Could I be doing less?"
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For a free, 12" by 48" color poster of "19 Ways to step back," contact the American Foundation for the Blind, National Literacy Center at literacy@afb.net
With thanks to Laurie Hudson for permission to post 19 Ways to Step Back on this web site.
For more information about her book and ordering details go to the web site Classroom Collaboration